CHAPTER 3—ROAD TRIP
The next morning, Remy awoke groggy and out of sorts. For a moment, she had forgotten where she was. When she remembered, she groaned in frustration. Suddenly, a sob ripped out of her. It wasn't an unusual occurrence. It seemed that she cried every morning when she awoke, because she would have to face the reality of her situation. She quickly put her hand over her mouth to stifle her cries. She didn't want the goon to think something had happened to her. When she thought of the goon, a wonderful idea popped into her head.
Remy got out of bed and crept up to the door adjoining her room with his. She leaned against it, trying to hear if he was awake. She didn't hear any noise, but that didn't mean he was asleep. She noticed that the door had a lock on it. Hot damn, she thought as she engaged it. Of course, the goon was pretty strong, and it wouldn't take him long to break in. However, she intended to be miles down the road by the time he awoke. She dressed and packed as quickly as possible.
Donovan jarred himself awake. His internal clock barely allowed him to oversleep, but it normally failed him when he slept away from home. Groaning a little, he rolled over and snagged his wristwatch off the nightstand by the bed. It took him a moment to wake up, and another moment to think about Remy. He glanced at the adjoining door. Oddly, the thought of that closed door worried him.
"Goddamn it," he swore under his breath.
He jumped out of bed and went for the door. As he expected, it was locked from the other side. Knowing it was a useless gesture, he banged on it anyway. As he figured, there was no answer. He drove his shoulder into the door a few times before it gave way. Neither Remy nor her bag was in the room. White-hot anger licked at his body like a well-stoked fire. He wasn't sure with whom he was angriest, himself or her. He went back to his room to dress. He added Remy to his list of people to strangle.
* * *
Remy kept looking over her shoulder for the dark Suburban. When the goon noticed her disappearance, he was certain to come looking for her. Once he caught her, she didn't want to think of what he would do to her. She had to stop thinking about getting caught and instead direct her energies toward getting gone.
The town they had stopped in wasn't big. It shouldn't have taken long to find a lone female hitchhiker. Despite that, Donovan had yet to spot her. If Remy's situation weren't so grave, he would simply call the police and let them drag her in. At this point, she didn't need any attention drawn to her.
Remy saw the Suburban way before Donovan saw her. Her only course of action was to hide. She threw her bag down to the ground and ducked behind a park bench. If he didn't notice her bag, he wouldn't find her. At this point, she knew her leaving had been a stupid thing to do. But since she had carried it out, she couldn't turn back now. Her only option was to continue running. Of course, she didn't know that Donovan's vision was sharp, and he was highly trained to detect objects that any other person might miss.
"Goddamn," he spat as his eyes locked onto Remy's partially hidden bag.
He pulled the Suburban over to the curb and got out. She had abandoned her bag close to a bunch of bushes with those funky prickly leaves. He could never remember what those things were called, but he had had a few run-ins with them as a child. She had to be around here somewhere.
She watched as the goon took her bag and carried it over to the SUV. Shit. The prick had taken her things. Without that bag, she had nothing. She shifted uncomfortably behind the bench and lost her balance.
Donovan turned suddenly as he heard Remy's voice crying out a painful "SHIT." It had come from the direction of a park bench no more than seven feet from where he stood. Although concerned, he couldn't help but smile a little. It served her right running away like that. Wiping the smile off his face, he approached the tangle of bushes and peered curiously behind the park bench. In the middle of all that green was Remy.
Fighting desperately against his amusement, he asked, "Are you all right?"
She took his proffered hand and allowed him to pull her out from behind the bench. He noticed several scratches on her arms, and a nasty one on her cheek. Once on her feet, she released his hand quickly.
"I'm fine," she said.
"Good," he said. His concern quickly became anger. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"
She shrank away from his menacing glare. "I don't know."
It was an answer that a child would give. "When are you going to cut the shit and start taking this threat seriously?"
Donovan took her by the forearm and led her to the Suburban. He guided her body inside the vehicle on the drivers' side. He slid in beside her quickly so as not to give her another chance to escape. He didn't immediately start the ignition. Instead, he reached behind him to the backseat and grabbed something. For a moment, she wondered if he was reaching for a pair of handcuffs. Confused, she watched as he brought out a file folder of some sort. He flipped it open and dug around in it until he found what he was looking for.
He was sure he would hate himself for what he was about to do, but he had little choice. He dug out a medical examiner's photo of Anthony Wengrod. Turning to Remy, he grabbed her arm and turned her body toward his. He forced her to look at the picture. She tried to shrink away from it, but he wouldn't allow her to look away.
"No, Remy," he said, using her first name. "I know you don't want to see this," he said in a severe whisper, "but I think you need to. Do you see what happened to him? Do you? Answer me."
She shut her eyes and literally whimpered. "Yes," she cried. "I see it. I was there."
"Yes, Remy, you were there, you saw what happened. This could be you. I want you to understand that. The next time you take a wild hair to run off, remember this image, and know that this is going to happen to you if you don't let me do my job."
"Okay," she cried. "Please put it away. I can't look at it anymore."
He let go of her and pulled back. Donovan silently put the photo back into the file. He glanced over at her and noticed that her eyes were still closed. What he had done was harsh, maybe even a bit on the mean side, but he had little room to question his motives. He wondered if she thought all this was a game. Surely she didn't, because she had been there. She saw it firsthand. He gunned the engine to life and pulled away from the curb. Donovan drove them back to the hotel.
He was concerned about the scratches she had sustained from the bushes, but the look on her face told him she didn't give a rat's ass about his worry. He didn't thoroughly trust her, and once they returned to their rooms, he was forced to keep the door separating them open. She didn't seem to notice or care.
"We're not staying here," he called to her from his room.
"Fuck off, I don't care," she whispered to herself, just out of earshot.
She soothed her scratches with a wet cloth. In the other room, she could hear Donovan getting his things together.
Donovan came to the door and watched her carefully. She sat on the bed gently cleaning the dried blood from her injuries. She was highly aware of his presence, and it annoyed her greatly. For the time being, she ignored him. The arrogant fuck would never apologize for what he had done.
"We need to leave soon. That little stunt you pulled put us behind schedule," he said
She didn't acknowledge him right away. Instead, she continued doctoring her arms. "I suppose you never make mistakes, Mr. Donovan? It was stupid, but I can't go back and erase it. Let it go and lay off me. If you want us to be civil to each other, you should work on your people skills. It appears that you have none."
* * *
The two of them were on the road again. Since their exchange of words earlier that day, they hadn't spoken much. Remy eventually fell into a fitful sleep. Donovan glanced over in her direction once he knew she was out. With her mouth and eyes closed, she wasn't so dreadful. He wondered what had made her build such a wall around herself. He knew the murder of her lover had been a horribly tragic ordeal. It was something no one should have to go through. Did she want to die? Was that it?
The door flew open. The noise shook the floor and made the entire room vibrate. Anthony's head split open like an overripe watermelon. It even made the same wet noise. Something moist and warm landed on her face. At first, she thought it was a drop of blood. How wrong she had been. It was a chunk of Anthony's brain. Oh, how she had screamed and screamed. She looked up and saw the killer. He had aimed his weapon at her. His eyes were a bizarre shade of brown, reminiscent of chocolate.
"No," Remy gasped aloud.
A concerned voice called her name. Unsure of who it was, unsure of where she was, she opened her eyes and focused them on Donovan's face. A pair of brown eyes was fixed on her, a pair of decidedly chocolate brown eyes. Horrified, she shrank away from him. Her hand reached for the door handle. Donovan reacted and grabbed her arm.
"Let me go," she screamed at him.
"Stop," he demanded. "You were dreaming. It's okay."
She began slapping at him, trying desperately to loosen his grip on her arm. "No, it's not okay. It was you in the room. I saw your eyes. You!"
"Listen to me, Remy. You were dreaming. What you saw was only in your mind. I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help, but only if you let me."
Remy began to calm down little by little. He was right, of course. The killer hadn't gotten close enough for her to even see his face, let alone the color of his eyes. She shook her head, hoping that she could rid the images from her mind. It was no use. Her tears began to pour out of her eyes. Donovan wasn't sure if she would welcome or even accept his comfort, but he couldn't allow her to sit and cry. He drew her toward him, and was surprised that she did not resist. She buried her face into his chest and his hand gently caressed her hair. He said nothing to her, because no words in the English language would soothe her.
It took a long time for her tears to subside, and when they did, she pulled away from him. It was as if she realized she despised him and had just noticed that she was in his embrace. She had never felt like such a girl in her life. She had clung to this arrogant goon who had rather shoot her than look at her.
She hastily wiped her tears away with the heel of her hand. "I'm sorry."
"For what," he asked.
"I probably ruined your shirt," she said flatly.
"Shirts can be cleaned. It's not a big deal. Are you all right?"
She wondered if he always spoke in such a machine gun fashion. She didn't feel like talking to him anymore. She nodded and kept her eyes focused on the window. She had a story to tell, and Donovan was losing his patience. Sighing, he put the Suburban back into gear and pulled out onto the highway.
* * *
They made a pit stop for food about an hour later. Donovan had every intention of stopping at a sit down restaurant. He had no desire to take his meal stuck inside the Suburban. He was quickly getting sick of the vehicle, and exasperated with the company. Remy groaned when he pulled the SUV into a parking lot of a family-type diner. She didn't feel like moving, much less walking into some dive to have the patrons staring at her swollen eyes and runny nose. She opted for drive through. Donovan internally balked, but for now, he would humor her. He still felt badly for what he had done earlier, and he wanted to make it up to her any way he could.
"We can go this route, but I refuse to eat and drive at the same time. I have to stop," Donovan told her.
She shrugged, indicating that she didn't care what he did. "That's fine with me."
The two of them ate in silence for a bit. From the corner of his eye, Donovan watched Remy curiously. He wondered what she was all about, why she was so guarded, and if she would ever stop aggravating [there it is again] him. He almost laughed when he realized that his team probably had the same thoughts floating in their heads about him. He wanted to talk to her, to try to break through her shell. It was clear she didn't trust him, but how could he earn her trust if she wouldn't talk to him? He shook it off and resumed eating. There was nothing worse than having a meal in a car, and he wanted to finish as soon as possible.
"Are we close to where we need to be," she asked suddenly.
She speaks, he thought. "Almost. I'd say two more hours."
"Two hours," she whined. "Why so damn far away?"
He felt himself nearly asking: Why are you so annoying? He knew he must maintain a calm exterior. But it was hard. She didn't want his help, but he was obligated by duty and ethics to provide it.
"It would be easier for this person to find you if we'd moved you down the block," he said sarcastically.
"Jerk," she spat under her breath.
He was aware she didn't intend for him to hear that, but he did. "Miss Ellis, I thought we were going to work on our communication?"
She finished off her cheeseburger and balled up the paper it had come in. She fixed her eyes on his face. He was gazing at her intensely, and she wondered momentarily if he could see through to her soul. "My life is ruined, you're holding me hostage, and you expect me to be happy about it?"
Here we go again, he groaned to himself. He didn't have much time to respond to her. She reached for the door handle. Thinking quickly, and knocking over a few things in the process, he grabbed her arm. He reached around to the back of his belt and grabbed something that was out of her line of vision. In horror, she gaped at Donovan as he slapped a handcuff on her wrist. She tried to jerk her arm up and out of his grasp, but he was too strong for her. He slapped the other cuff on his wrist. Satisfied for the time being, he glared at her, literally daring her to make a move.
"What the hell are you doing," she demanded indignantly. "Where did you get those things?"
"I never leave home without them, Remy," he said. "You obviously didn't take my first warning seriously, did you? If you want to be treated like a child, I can arrange that."
The thought of being physically connected to the goon was upsetting, but also…interesting. Ugh, don't even go there. "You goon bastard," she spat, "let me out of this cuff at once."
"Nope," he said smugly. "We're going to come to an understanding, however grudgingly it is made. Do I make myself clear?"
Remy couldn't tear her eyes off his face. There were three things she thought of doing: slapping, spitting, and clawing. It would be a shame to mar his face, but she would do it if necessary. "I'm not an idiot," she spat.
He smiled a little, and she wasn't sure if he was amused or disgusted. "That still remains to be seen, Miss Ellis."
Another human being had never so openly insulted her. She was not accustomed to that at all. Of course, it had yet to dawn on her that she had done her own share of name-calling where Frank Donovan was concerned. She could not say a word to him.
He took hold of the wrist cuffed to his, and he jerked her body forward. He locked his eyes onto hers. "You don't trust me, Remy, and that's fine, because I don't trust you, either. If I did, I wouldn't have had to break out the handcuffs. Wallow all you want, but don't take it out on me. I have a job to do, and I'll do it, but it's going to be a lot easier if you stop acting like the spoiled brat that you are, and start giving a damn. Let me help you. You may act as if you want to die, but I know you don't."
His face was almost right in hers, it was close enough that she could feel his warm breath and smell the hint of his cologne. He was there, in just the right position for her to spit in his face if she so desired. Remy hesitated.
"How would you like it? Easy or hard," he asked pointedly.
She swallowed a huge lump in her throat. Her heart hammered crazily inside her chest. He had asked a loaded question. Considering the circumstances, it was insulting. She knew he didn't mean it that way, but her self-esteem was so low that every word he said was a cut. Yet, she couldn't follow through with any attack against him. It wasn't right. Despite her initial feelings about Donovan, he was trying to help.
"It all depends," she said evenly, "on whichever choice gets me out of these cuffs and away from you."
His face drew even closer to hers, and for a moment, she thought he might kiss her. The thought of the goon kissing her was one not altogether unpleasant. However, she had gotten herself into all kinds of trouble for allowing smooth, handsome men to kiss her. She almost felt disappointed when he didn't.
"Very well," he said, his lips only mere inches from hers.
Once the words were out of his mouth, he drew away from her, but he didn't release the cuff. Although it would be awkward driving with one arm, he revved the SUV into life and pointed it toward an exit for the freeway. He intended to keep her cuffed to him until he felt comfortable enough to release her. She would have to earn his trust.
Damned if he didn't nearly kiss her. Donovan, what are you thinking?
